Progressive Lawyers Group and the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union studied the Basic Law teaching package and concluded it is not acceptable as a secondary school material. Photo: Internet
A video material to help teach the Basic Law in secondary schools is being denounced by students, instructors and lawyers who say it’s misleading.
They want the Education Bureau to cancel it, saying the material could be used to brainwash students, according to Apple Daily.
Progressive Lawyers Group and the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (HKPTU) studied its content and concluded it is not acceptable as a secondary school material.
HKPTU said it promotes partisan politics and intentionally avoids controversial topics such as a lawyers’ march for judicial independence in June last year.
Also, the views presented in the material are misleading because these assume Hong Kong people accept Beijing’s reinterpretation of the mini constitution, it said.
All interviewees in the video are pro-establishment figures including Elsie Leung, deputy director of the Hong Kong Basic Law Committee, and Maria Tam, a deputy to the Chinese legislature.
The lawyers group said the material plays down the fact that “one country, two systems” was derived from the Sino-British Declaration.
That could lead students to believe that the Basic Law is an extension of the Chinese constitution which can be amended by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress as it pleases, the group said.
While the material encourages citizens to obey the Basic Law, it does not say how it is supposed to protect their rights.
The Education Bureau thinks there’s nothing wrong with it.
It said students can learn to think independently through the video presentation.
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